Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-12-07
An Open Letter.


some comment upon sermon which
preached on the Sunday morning of the wei
prayer observed by the Y. M. G. A.; and
further, as some misrepresentation have
been reported to me, | beg space IN youi
columns for the only extracts from sale
sermon which could call forth the adverse
criticism. I feared my remarks would
probably be misunderstood, or misapplied
therefore took special care to write this
sermon out in full, and to preach 1t as Il
aons acritten. My text was II Kings, 4:4O
| 80 thou man of God, there is death in the
Pot" My subject was, "What is the best
way of guiding and helping young men
towards Gods service?" I declared the
work of leading them to Gods service to
be the one best way to make good citizens.
good men, good brothers, good sons, good
friends, good husbands, good everything. y
And now came the extracts which caused
some dissatisfied comment: "Get mans
heart right if you want to get his ife
right ! But how can that be done
Through all generations, to this hour,
| human bands have proved too weak to
| bind SIGNATURE in the heart. Yet the
world is so slow to see and believe that,
and many have turned away from the only
saving power. Take one illustration, much
to the point, just now: How can the Non
ster. Sin-power. as it is called, the liquor
traffic, be overcome? We read that tenn,
perance agitation. high license, local OPP
| ton, prohibition, flaming evangelists like
Cough and Murphy, with long pledge
rolls, literary bureaus, woman's crusades,
and all other imaginable appliances have
been put to work, and what is the result
Lamentable indeed Still the cry is. 20
man of God, there is death in the Pot !'
For we read Government Bureau statistics
tell MS that 10 the last forty six years, since
1910, the consumption of beer has increased
from % 900, 900 gallons to ga, 600. coo gal
hons. In thirty-nine years, siuce 1915. the
consumption of distilled spirits has increas-
ed from 43, 100000 gallons to 10000, 900
gallons; and since 1910 the consumption of
wines has increased from 5000, 900 gallons
to 1000 600 gallons. And the liquor
drinking, far outrunning the increase of
population. has increased since 1850 from a
little over four gallons per man. to tacelre
and half gallons per man in 1886.
Our Government gives us these deplora-
BILE, startling facts And so this sin power
triumphs over the holding of human
bands The great ''Pot'' is more full of
death than ever What is to be done. !?
Take hold of Gods powsr ! find this
in his nostrls As one says Preach and
live the Gospel, not in order to reform
men and purge society, but to save mep
from all their sins and from hell, that God
may haze glory through Jesus Chr1s'! Saue a
lost sinner and you have reformed him in
every respect and contributed immensely to
the publication OF society The root
Of the evil is in the desperately wicked
heart, and in the Gospel is the only axe
which can reach and cut that root. And if
one half of the zeal which many Christian
poop display in the Temperance cause"
and in HATRED of the liquor-dealer, and in
bad feelings towards other Christians who
cannot act and think as they do; if one
half of this zeal we're exhibited by them
in The Church and for the Church, in love
for brethren, in prayer and works and gifts
for the success and spread Of the Gospel;
in strong cryings and tears that God would
glorify Himself by the safpation of souls
through Christ that day would be won-
derfully FASTENED when as Gods word
says: s'The captives of the mighty shall
be taken away, and the prey of the terrible
shall be delivered and when the sinners
Saviour shall see of the travail of his soul,
and shall be satisfied" 1t was He who
came to earth with the Divine wisdom
.sYe must be born Notwithstanding that
even God knows no hope for man until his
sin heart is chnnged-devil life taken out !;
God life put inl Then you have the ''New
Creature whose growth shall be to the
fullness of the measure of the stature Of a
man in Christ Jesus He acorks in cain
arho DOES not acork for that I"
Again, under the head of carelesaness
about achot is kno,rn to bring bad results, I
SAID And there are those who are guilty
of this They know and see the results of
what they do 1.-THE world is full of them !!
They read them written with tears and
" Yet they go on gather
ing the wild gourds," and ssshred them
INTO the potts." careless though others still
make money! Yes 1 know When speak
thus, what some may think, and where
they apply my remarks. Bar-rooms and
liouor-traffic rise up in their thoughts
But select no special s'wild gourd gath
erer," 10 hold him mp as THE ruin-worker.
| Leu me warn you, don't make bor-rooms so
| big in your thoughts as to shut out every
| thing else, nor make those who keep them,
| the ONLY workers on that '.broad road
which leadeth to Gestructiona When you
seek, truly, TO know the materials of
which that ''broad road" is made, You will
see that many of them were quarried from
MUNICIPALITIES allowed and practiced in
decent, fashionable, too often, Christian
HON, and society. When Gods rules for
living are deemed too strict; when God IS
wisdom is treated as old fogyism, and His
protested servants go out to worldly fields
to gather of "wild vines, rather than live
| by what their Lord has provided and di-
rected, no wonder we hear the cry. 90 man
| OF Sod. there ia death in the Pot ~ And
what matters it how the poisonous 'gourds"
get there, whether put in with refined
grace by polished men and women of fash
| ionable society, or thrown in by some open
handed servant of the devil !! The poison
may be more decently prepared, in one
case, than in the other But there it is
she some poison, doing its deadly work 7,
| [ endeavhred also to show that Christians
must use their mes Ms for winning young
lives to Jesus. said athe devil is doing
that. and so must you" And I illustrated
this point by the published fact that a
Brewing Company in St. Louis, Mo-, spent
$50 900 to defeat prohibition in Texas. Be
| You'd thess REMARKS, nothing was said
/ which, by the widest INSTRUMENTATION.
could be twisted into an "attack upon the
temperance w. rk." If the statistics are
unfortunate-yet ccrrect,-all the more the
need to take hold upon a power greater
than mans, to DO the desired work. For
Government reports ] am not responsible
/ As to other remarks, 1t is no news to any,
that in many cases, temperance zeal has
been too harsh and 'intolerant, too liberal
Id condemnations and hard sayings, where
better spirit shown, might have produced
| better effect. If am judged harahIy foi
that sermon, can only say, have nothing
to retract until il is proven that did moi
speak correctly in one case and truly in the
other. My Bible does not teach me tenn
perance in one thing, but in all things, anG
Gods concentrations are not only. upot
drunkenness, but upon some other things
aohicA need looking to, also, as any mar
may sse by residing Cor. VI: a.10., Bob
Y; 5, and other parts of Gods word The
great object of the sermon was to contras
The human posDer and the Dipine posper il
the work of saving men from ruin. If snJ
believe that human power can do that
work without special enabling from Divine
power,-I do not, and 1 can Meier so preach
l